THE DANGER OF RELIGIOUS PRIDE
PART TWO
- 17 Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God;
- 18 if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law;
- 19 if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark,
- 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth-
- 21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal?
- 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
- 23 You who brag about the law, do you dishonour God by breaking the law?
- 24 As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
- 25 Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.
- 26 If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised?
- 27 The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a law-breaker.
- 28 A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.
- 29 No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.
INTRODUCTION: Last Sunday (February 15), we discussed how Paul the Apostle accused the Jews of his time and place of spiritual pride. Paul mentions five ways in which they were spiritually proud. We were able to cover the first three points, but have left the last two points for today.
REVIEW from February 15.....
I. The Jews were proud of their ancestry -- they were guilty of racism. They considered Gentiles, and especially Samaritans, as unclean. They considered themselves ceremonially unclean if they were in the presence of Gentiles. They would not touch them, they would not eat with them, they would not touch a cup or plate that had been touched by a Gentile. That is one of the remarkable things about the story of Jesus and the woman at the well (she was a Samaritan) (see John 4:7-9). Peter's meeting with the Roman centurian Cornelius is also illustrative of the racism of the Jews (see Acts 10:28, 34-35).
II. The Jews were proud of their religion -- they were guilty of sectarianism and ritualism. Judaism is not the God-given religion of the Old Testament. Judaism was the invention of the Jews who were exiled from the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC, and from the Southern Kingdom in 586 BC. Judaism developed in Assyrian, and in Babylon, and is embodied in the Talmud. Jesus accused the Jews of breaking the laws of God by preferring their own man-made traditions (Mark 7:4-13).
III. The Jews were proud of their Bible, the Torah -- they were guilty of "Bible-olatry." They memorized the Torah. They counted the number of words and letters. They copied it very carefully. They handled it with reverence. They had ceremonial burials for Torahs that were damaged. BUT: they didn't live by the words of the Torah. They worshipped the book, not what was in the book.
These three elements of pride: racism, sectarianism and Bible-olatry...what about Christians today? Are we not often guilty of the same sins?
Moving along to our next two points of pride...
IV. The Jews were proud of their Proseletizing -- they were guilty of worldliness.
"Proseletizing" means "winning converts to your religion." Jesus told is in Matthew 23:15 that the Jews were extremely zealous to win converts to Judaism.
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are."
In the Book of Galatians Paul writes of his own zeal before he became a Christian, and of the zeal of the "Judaizers" who were trying to win over the Galatian Christians...
Proseletizing for reasons other than love, and obedience to God, is worldliness. The Jews were zealous for converts for the sake of self-affirmation and power. They were not truly concerned about the eternal destiny of the people they were drawing into their sphere of influence. Nor were they concerned about the glory of God. They wanted numbers. They wanted to boast of their performance. This is worldliness.
In our time we stand amazed at the zeal of the cults: We have probably all had visits from both the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons. They are determined, they are persuasive to many people, and they are growing quickly. The Mormon cult got started by Joseph Smith and five other people in 1830. Today there are 13 million Mormons. Islam is also a proseletizing religion. Islam began with Mohammed in the 7th century, and today claims one fourth of the world's population. And Islam is willing to persuade not only with words, but by the sword.
In the year 2000 President Bill Clinton gave a speech on Ramadan, the Muslim holiday, in which he said...
"We welcome Islam in America. It enriches our country with Islam’s teachings of self-discipline, compassion, and commitment to family. It deepens America’s respect for Muslims here at home and around the world...Today, Muslim Americans are a cornerstone of our American community. They enrich our political and cultural life; they provide leadership in every field of human endeavor, from business to medicine, to scholarship..."
With some six million adherents in the United States, Islam is said to be the nation's fastest-growing religion, fueled by immigration, high birth rates and widespread conversion especially among African Americans.
The application for Christians is that we too must beware of WORLDLINESS in our desire for Church growth. Our motives for evangelism should be love and obedience to God, and love and compassion for the lost. We should not preach the Gospel for other reasons.
Also, we must be wary of trying to create CHURCH GROWTH instead of conversions. It is quite possible to grow churches, to start and increase membership, without preaching the Gospel. Again, consider Mormonism. There is no preaching of the Gospel there, yet there is great "church growth." Even in truly Christian churches today, and in seminaries, we rarely hear about evangelism and winning the lost to Christ. We hear about "church growth."
You can get CHURCH GROWTH by following a tried and true formula.
Rick Warren also says that you can revitalize an old church by forcing these church growth principles onto the older congregation. Buy land in the growing area, and move your church. Sell the old building. Quit using the organ, quit singing the old hymns, and hire a praise band. And he says that you need to be hard as nails, and simply send away anyone in the congregation who stands in your way.
It's nice to have a rapidly growing church made up of young married professional couples. But most of the growth in these newly planted churches comes not from conversion, but from people transfering their membership from other churches. And much of the growth comes from the birth of children. It also true that most of the growth in older, traditional style churches comes from transfer growth from other churches. What we must begin to do in all our churches, contemporary or traditional, is train and encourage our church members to be evangelists. We have all been called by our Lord to be able to articulate the Gospel, and to evangelize our relatives, our neighbors, our friends and our co-workers. We desparately need to see the lost coming to Christ. We need to see Agnostics, Pagans, Mormons, Muslims, Jews and Wiccans turning to Jesus Christ. How are we doing with our evangelism? And Billy Graham Crusade stadium evangelism is not what I'm talking about. Each of us personally must be an evangelist.
V. The Jews were proud of their perceived righteousness -- they were guilty of religious hypocrisy.
Look at what they called themselves:
They were fond of tooting their own horns in other words, too. Look at the language Paul used to describe himself to the Phillipi Christians (only because to false apostles were shooting him down):
Jesus pulled no punches about the essential sinfulness of the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:1-3, 23-28...
In the parable of the Rich Young Ruler in Matthew 19, Jesus shows us how hypocritical self-righteousness can blind us to our true spiritual condition:
We Christians today can easily have the same spiritual pride in our own goodness. Sabbath keeping Christians will be tempted to think themselves better than those who don't keep the Sabbath. Non-smoking and non-drinking Christians are tempted to think themselves better (and vice versa). Calvinists vs Arminians. Dispensationalists vs Covenant folk. Pastors with doctoral degrees, or who can read Greek and Hebrew, may be tempted to think themselves better. Presbyterians/Episcopalians vs Assembly of God/Church of God folks. Spiritual pride is a besetting sin, and we had better learn to be humble.
CONCLUSION AND SUMMARY: Paul accused the Jews of his time of spiritual pride in five particulars:
May God help us to learn, and to shun these sins in our own lives today.